The KantoJohto War
by Mark of Distinction
Summary: A briefish description of an idea I had that attempts to explain some weird things you may or may not notice in Pokemon Gold and Silver. Note that I did in fact forget Kotone/Lyra isn't in those games. Also included, Team Rocket origin story.


In Pokémon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, we see the player characters Gold and Kotone going through the basic Pokémon formula- Kid getting his or her first creature, raising a team, defeating the Gyms, Elite Four, and Team Rocket. However, the nature of the land of Johto and its relationship with the neighboring Kanto is not as all would make it seem. Does it not seem strange to you that two adjacent regions or countries would only have for transport between them a mountain pass, a ferry, and a recently-constructed train line between them? Where are the routes connecting them if they've been so close? The answer, ladies and gentlemen, is not pretty. Let me start from the beginning.

Until recently, the Kanto/Johto relationship was not as rosy as it seemed in the second generation Pokémon games. In fact, little more than 20 years ago, there was a wall, dubbed the Grand Divide that separated the two. This was the fruit of the massive-scale conflict that divided the two nations. That's right. They were at war. Pokémon were the soldiers, commanded by their Trainers to fight the opposing forces until death. This explains several things.

The first revelation was the seeming cluelessness to the existence of the Johto-region Pokémon that the Kanto elite had. Oak's first Pokedex possessed by Red was indeed the only Pokémon they knew at the time. It was only three years later, with Elm's Pokedex, that all Kanto and Johto Pokémon were catalogued for the first time, given the relenting of restrictions on what were some of the most dearly kept of wartime secrets. With this Pokedex, both sides could see the exact statistics of the opposing Pokémon weapons. Should war once again rise, the Pokedex would be the Holy Grail of combat information, so it is natural that only decades after the fact was it finally approved.

Secondly, the presence of Kanto Pokémon in Johto while the reverse was untrue would also be explained by this idea. If Kanto was the aggressor in this conflict, then fallen Trainers whose Pokémon escaped and bred in the new ecosystem would populate the region. Johto, barely managing to hold out with its inferior economic status and defensive disadvantage, would have had little chance to lose their creatures on the Kanto side of the wall. In addition, these invasive Kanto species were only identified after the war in Johto due to the need for all Pokémon scientists in the war effort. In addition, the seeming absence of the baby forms and evolutions of Kanto Pokémon that were discovered in Johto are the result of selective breeding. The Kanto Pokémon Army, not interested in the Baby Pokémon subtypes as a result of their inferior battle capabilities, bred out the extra stage in the species' development. The evolutions, on the other hand, were deemed harmful to the unity of the KPA's forces, and were bred out at the expense of specialized power to secure even fighting capabilities. When the escaped Pokémon began to breed in the wild, these recessive opportunities to evolve differently or start off earlier in the evolutionary process reemerged, only around the time of Generation II becoming widespread enough to be studied in any kind of detailed analysis.

On a third note, the presence of Team Rocket makes sense given we accept a few facts. One- Giovanni was the premiere general in Kanto's army at the time of the war. Giovanni, while still young, was the brilliant tactician he remains today. He organized numerous assaults on the border cities of Bark Town, where his forces razed the original fortress city to the ground, and Blackthorn City, where after a siege of the mountains proved unsuccessful, he redirected his forces into a border redoubt, now known as the Pokémon League. His main gateway, the Mount Silver Pass, would be guarded by this League, and thus both prevent return attacks and provide easy supplies to the invading armies. However, he failed to take into account the growing peacemaking faction in the Kanto region. Led by Pokémon rights activist Mr. Fuji, the Lavender Brigade led several strikes and boycotts of Silph Co., Giovanni's prime weapons research and revenue facility. Eventually, a mass coup took place, ousting Giovanni from his throne on the Indigo Plateau, and installing an oligarchic state ruled by the Elite Four, and the Champion as head of state. The disgraced Giovanni, determined to continue his war, would go on to start the underground Team Rocket movement in an attempt to both seize control of the Kanto region and build up a force to invade Johto once more, now that the Grand Divide had been dismantled. Unfortunately for the formerly great general, his schemes were foiled by a talented Trainer known only as Red. Giovanni, defeated twice, retreated, dissolving Team Rocket itself. The crime organization seemed disbanded for good until the rise of Neo Team Rocket, an extremist faction of administrators from the original Rockets, namely Executives Proton, Petrel, Ariana, and Archer. However, this movement was itself crushed by Gold and Kotone, the main player characters in GSC. Thus the story of Team Rocket was effectively closed, its mission to unite all peoples in both nations under the Rocket flag defeated soundly at all turns.

However, there is one more tale to be told, however brief. The Gym Leaders and Elite Four members, especially the Champion and the means of ascending the throne of Indigo Plateau. The Gym Leaders of both regions started off as being the eight top officers of Kanto and Johto's armies. They were further divided into teams of five, with four becoming Gym Leaders, and the leader becoming the chosen Elite Four member in the Pokémon League government. However, given the decades since the war's end, the posts are now either held by the individuals held best suited for the jobs by the original Gym Leaders, or, in the case of a certain few, by the first Gym Leaders, an example of which being Pryce of the Johto Armed Forces. The Champion, Lance, is the original Johto general's younger cousin, who was granted the post when the first Champion, Drake, stepped down. While it is true that both player characters defeated Blue, in the case of Red, or Lance himself in the case of Gold and Kotone, the age of the combatants resulted only in the procuring of a claim to the throne. Blue, however, opted to take the throne at the time of his victory, short though his reign was.

While the story of these two beleaguered nations remains unfinished, we can only hope for now that the prevailing watchful peace continues. Great leaps in interregional relations have been made, especially with Johto adopting the same governmental body as Kanto in recent years, but the scars left by this war, though innocuous at times, can still be seen today.


End file.
